GIBS REBEL AT NO CORSET ORDER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3509, 27 April 1912, Page 10

GIBS REBEL AT NO CORSET ORDER.

"AVhat? AVibhout corsets? AYhy, it’s terrible—unheard of—l wouldn’t dream of such a thing!’'’ indignantly sakl a plump Erasmus Hall High School senior as she walked home along Flatbusli avenue, arm-in-arm with her very best friend. The street was full of scliolgirls, who gathered in excited groups. - , - "And at a co-educational school, too! My word, it would be bad enough, if it wasn’t—but with those boys around! Never!” TJio boys looked over from across the street and smiled. The girls blushed. Airs Frank D. Edgell, the 'gymnasium instructor, is at the bottom of the whole thing. It wag she who issued the order that hereafter corsets would be left hanging by their strings in the closets at home on gymnasium days. "Corsets interfere with your training,” she said. "A r ou can’t move in them, and yon can’t breathe right when you’re in the gymnasium. And I dont’ want any more of those shirtwaists worn, either,” she added. "The next time you come you wear middy blouses.”

The class ef giris in the'gymnasium gasped.

"AYhat’s that? No corsets, Airs Edgell?” one of them asked. "Did I hear you right?” "Perfectly,” said Airs Edgell. "And middy blouses, too.” "AYliy, middy blouses are loose, flapping tilings. Suppose it’rs a windy day?”

"Aliddy blouses, I said,” responded

the gymnasium teacher. But the Erasmus girls say They simply won’t obey—that’s all. Last year, when Aliss Kate E. Turner, acting principal, forbade pull's and rats, it was bad enough, but tlie new edict' i« too much. The ban. on rats and puffs lasted only about a week, for the rats soon began to appear again. But Erasmus girls range from 15 to 20 years eld, and have minds ef their own, they say. The trouble is that you must have gymnasium credit if you want to graduate. The boys get such credit through football, baseball, and track work, but every' girl who is not a cripple must attend the gymnasium, the three lower grades twice a week, tlie five upper grades oncel And 200 out of the 2400 girls in the school want to graduate next June. The girls are allowed only three minutes to get into their bloomers and shoe and get out of them, and they have been wearing all kinds of shirtwaists. Some ef the teachers said yesterday that they were tired of the gymnasts running -back to classes with their collars tucked in and shirtwaists half-buttoned- at the hack. Hence the middy blouse . No corsets and middy blouses, says Airs Edgell: perhaps middy blouses, blit certainly corsets, say the girls.— New Yoi-k Tribune.